Once upon a Dream
by Tutankhamunfreak
Summary: He's woken up in a white room with no memory of the past twenty years and a visit from a boy with fangs. Something has happened. He just can't remember.
1. Chapter 1

**Tutankhamunfreak: hey so I know i'm supposed to be working on The Day Everything Changed but I kind of had this idea nagging at me for AGES**

**Arthur: She keeps talking about it to no one. It's weirder tha Merlin being on time.**

**Tutankhamunfreak: One, I am not weird, I am individual. Two, this is a Darren Shan fanfiction. you know vampires and vampaneze and people ripping other guys throats out! What the hell are you doing here?**

**Arthur: I don't know. Maybe Morgana poisoned my wine?**

**Tutankhamunfreak: Or maybe Merlin just got bored and annoyed with you. I'll ask hims myself but first (turns to audience) thank you so much for reading and sadly I do not own the Saga of Darren Shan or in fact Merlin from BBC though why Arthur has dragged himself here I do not know. please review! darren is not being tortured in this one! He is safe and happy dont worry!**

**Arthur: What do you mean by Tortured?...**

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><p>He opened his eyes and blinked in the glare. Everything was white. The lighting, the walls, the sheets… Where was he? The hospital. He tried remembering back but he couldn't remember getting hurt. He could barely remember anything. He had been walking… away from somewhere. A graveyard. The graveyard had been full of people. But why? He racked his brains. A funeral. He, himself had been wearing a suit but he remembered hazily that he had felt nothing. That nothing he had only felt for one person. The only kind of nothing that had been especially reserved for that one person. But he couldn't remember that person's face.<p>

The door opened and a woman came in. He tried to ask her a question but all that came out was a croak. His throat was burning as if he had never drunk in the world. Why was he so thirsty? Had he dehydrated himself on purpose? He didn't know. The woman leaned over him frowning. She opened her mouth to say something… then nothing. A dark blackness just like before.

He opened his eyes again. The same white room. Empty again. A glass full of water was sat on the table next to the bed. The door opened again. This tie he wasn't thirsty but his throat was dry. He reached for the water but the newcomer put their hand out.

"Not yet," said a voice above him. He looked up to come face to face with a teenager. But no normal teenager. This teen was covered in scars. A small triangular scar ran under his eyebrow and burn marks covered his neck as if he had been caught in a fire.

"Who…?" he croaked before his voice gave out. The boy looked sympathetic even though he was only about seventeen.

"I can't tell you who you are. Come tomorrow you won't remember anyway but just in case I won't. Not because I'm trying to deliberately annoy you but because you might remember," the boy said taking his hand off his arm. He doesn't remember who this boy is but something is nagging at the back of his mind. He just needs a moment to think.

"Don't try to speak," the boy said as he opened his mouth to do just that. "It will only make the pain worse." A sudden commotion sounded behind the door. The boy turned towards the door a look of slight panic crossing his face. He turned back to him. "Don't freak out about the date. Just remember this is all for the better. A new life. A new chance. It's more than I had. Good luck." And with that the boy was gone. The blackness was coming back. He thought he saw an old man enter and stare at the boy. For a moment the boy opened his mouth and he thought he saw the boy sink a pair of fangs into the man's neck. Then nothing.

The third time he awoke he couldn't remember that last time. It seemed like a fuzzy dream. _A boy with fangs telling you good luck_… what strange dreams he had. But he had always had strange dreams. Sometimes they weren't just strange though. Sometimes they were horrible but he couldn't remember them like he couldn't remember the last time he had woken up.

The door opened. He wondered what strange occurrences would happen now. A different man from last time. A new one. He wondered who the woman was. The man looked up from his clipboard and smiled.

"Ah, I see you are finally awake. You were lucky to pull through. That stab wound was quite close to the heart," the man said. Stab wound? What had happened to him? Something from that fuzzy dream came back. _Don't freak out about the date_… Oh God. He looked around hoping that by some miracle the date would be somewhere. His eyes came to rest across the room where a bunch of x-rays were pinned to a board. His eyes were sharp and picked out the scanner date at the bottom. 5.06.12. He could feel himself hyperventilating. That date was wrong. It had to be wrong. There was no way that could be right. No way could he have missed twenty years of his life…

"Mr Leonard. Mr Leonard!" the man was shouting now. He turned towards the man, his voice returning.

"Who are you? Who am I? Why is the date wrong?" he found himself asking. He felt like a frightened child. The man frowned.

"I am Dr Charles, your doctor. I have been for a while now. You were still conscious when we first met, when you were first brought here. Are you sure you don't remember?" he turned to stare at the man with wide eyes. He was fairly certain he hadn't been stabbed. He was most definitely certain that he couldn't remember twenty years of his life going down the drain.

"I'm sorry I don't know who you are. I don't know who I am. Please, what's wrong with me?" he practically sobbed. It was all too much. What was happening? He felt scared like when he had been a child and his mother had left him in the shopping centre alone. He had thought it great fun at first but after a while he had come to realise that she was nowhere to be found. He remembers hammering the fear down and marching up to a security guard demanding to know where his mother was. It was .like that now except he couldn't control the fear this time. He had no one. She was long gone.

The man leaned back looking uncertain. "You seem to have amnesia Mr Leonard so I will tell you who you are as long as you tell me when you can last remember," the man said. He nodded.

"I remember walking away from my mother's funeral. I remember going to Annie's… I don't know why. It all goes blank there," he said. He could remember Annie. Sweet, smiling Annie who had been so brave when her brother had died.

"When was the date of your mother's funeral?" the man asked.

"December the twelfth, 1992," he said. The man raised an eyebrow.

"And how old were you then?"

"Nineteen," he answered confidently. The man paused and then picked up a hand held mirror.

"I assure you, you are nineteen no longer. It seems you have a serious case of amnesia though I don't know what from. The date is the fifth of June, 2012. Your name is Steve Leonard although your friend's nicknamed you Steve leopard for your wild ways as a child. Do you remember this?" He nodded. He had a name again. "You left home at sixteen but returned three years later for your mother's funeral. Somewhere between that time and when you left again at nineteen you fathered a child with Annie Shan although I don't know where you went after that. She claims you went in search of work to provide a home for the child." He blinks. He never knew that he had a son. He was determined to be a better father than his dad. "You returned home this year. You were entering the city and were stabbed. They never found the culprit although I hear that they tried to get you. Killed a nurse and a doctor but luckily they stopped at that. They haven't been seen since. You are safe now." He nods but is unsure. Something doesn't add up and he is determined to find out what that is.

His name is Steve Leopard and he is going to start a new life. He knows that he doesn't want to remember his past. Something tells him it would be bad.


	2. Chapter 2

**Arthur: Help! She keeps making me watch Merlin using magic! She's a sorceress!**

**Tutankhamunfreak: You know that no one can help you right? You brought yourself here now your stuck with me. And how you have never noticed is a mystery to me.**

**Arthur: What do you mean?**

**Tutankhamunfreak: (face palms) as you have probably figured out I am a massive Merlin fan and darren Shan fan, which I have no idea how they go together but I have ideas. I sadly don't own the Saga of Darren Shan, Darren Shan does.**

**Arthur: how does that work? How can someone write a book about themselves and it doesn't even have the right information in/**

**Tutankhamunfreak: the same way Geoffrey of Monmouth does. it's called FICTION. What your thinking about is an autobiography unless of course you can't be bothered to write it. Then it's a biography (only learnt that due to a histroy project. not good). Now before this loses it's point we shall start.**

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><p><em>Dark figures flashed by his face. One stood out, darker than the others. He was shorter than the other two and yet it was this one that was the most frequent. Shouts, screams and deranged laughter filled his ears as he tried to block it all out. A woman shouting at him, a man's scream, and a child's cry, the feel of blood running over his hands…<em>

Steve gasped as he woke from the nightmare. It was one of the many that he had had over the course of the week since he had woken lonely and confused in the hospital. Everyone was nice to him and Dr Charles had been trying desperately to find out why he remembered so little of his life. Steve didn't mind though. He had a feeling that his dreams warned him that he really didn't want to know.

Thankfully he wouldn't have to stay in the hospital for long. One of the Nurses, Claire, had informed him that Annie would be coming to pick him up from the hospital to drop him off at his apartment. Steve wondered where he lived and, more importantly, what he did for a living. He also wondered when he would see his son. He had often asked himself how he could forget his son but he didn't want to dwell on that now. He shuddered at the memory of the blood rushing over his hands like a river, a torrent…

Steve sighed and pushed the covers away from him. He padded into the corridor and into the toilets. Splashing water from the sink on his face, he took in his reflection. Long, pale blonde hair that was slowly turning grey. Stress of a growing child perhaps? Bright blue eyes that almost seemed to hide something. Well they were definitely hiding a lot…

Steve frowned as he spotted a small post it note that was stuck to the mirror. It wasn't exactly abnormal. Just an ordinary bright yellow post it note with a message on it. _Go back to bed_. Perhaps the nurses left it on there for patients who sleep walked. Or perhaps it was something else. He remembered a fuzzy dream of someone telling him that all this was for the better. Notes like this just happened to appear all the time. Maybe it was normal in his life for mysterious notes to appear. He couldn't remember.

He sighed and went back to bed, just as the note said. He closed his eyes and dreamed of nothing for the rest of the night. Just boring blackness. He switched off for the routine Nurse check-up on all his vitals as if he were still in intensive care. He managed to munch through most of the breakfast. By this time nervous butterflies were starting to flap around in his stomach. What if Annie didn't like him? That was ridiculous. She was amazing. What if he didn't recognize her though? It was possible. He had amnesia after all. What if he and his son didn't get along? What if, what if what if… Steve took a deep breath. Everything seemed to be passing in a blur since that note last night. He rubbed his eyes, trying to stop the colours from swirling in his tiredness. It wasn't the nurse's fault or even that stupid note. The pain killers made him sleepy and tired.

Eventually someone came to tell him that Annie was in the waiting area. He took a deep breath and looked around the room. It wasn't much but this was his first week of being thirty three for God's sake! He couldn't remember anything outside of the hospital save his old house, the graveyard and the old theatre. He wasn't sure if that was significant or not but he didn't want to find out.

When he reached the reception he took a deep breath. He had never seen anyone look so beautiful. Annie stood in the reception clutching a small shoulder bag. She was dressed in a suit and was probably on her way to work. Her brown curls were pinned back in a bun but not harshly so, so that they made her look much younger than she was. She had a put a little weight on from the last time he remembered but then again she had had a child so he could give her the benefit of the doubt for that. She was stunning and here he was the amnesiac, with no idea of how he normally spoke to her.

When Annie turned and saw him, she gave him a warm smile. He gave her a nervous one in return. He had no idea how to act around her.

"How are you?" she asked. Steve notes that she sounded genuinely concerned and yet there was something else underneath. Something almost… hesitant. As if she was afraid of what he might do. Was that normal? Steve didn't know.

"I'm fine," he said simply. She smiled encouragingly at him which made him think that the tone he had heard earlier was nothing but fantasy. It didn't matter that he had heard that. He hadn't known what to expect and neither had she. She had probably been informed that he couldn't remember anything. Of course she would be at least a little nervous. He could have been a raving lunatic for all she knew.

"Mr Leonard if you could just sign here…" The voice of a Nurse cut through Steve's panicked thoughts. He turned and saw a smiling nurse holding out a form and a pen. He signed where she had asked and then stood awkwardly, waiting for Annie to say something, anything. He didn't know what to think.

"Come on, Steve," Annie said gently, "I've informed Alan about the accident and the amnesia. He said you could have a few days off to get used to your life again." Alan? Who was Alan? Steve searched his memories as he followed Annie out into the car park. The only Alan he knew was Alan Morris and he… oh, yes. He was a leading scientist now. Dr Charles had told him that he was the accountant for Alan, sorting through all the project budgets and helping with the legal aspects of the company. Steve wasn't sure how well he would be able to do the job now since he had no memory of how to do it. Steve half smiled at the memory of the small gawky, clumsy kid that he had known in school. He wondered what Alan looked like now.

Annie stopped by a silver Vauxhall and opened the passenger door for him. Steve thanked her, feeling uncomfortable again. It felt awkward to be around the woman that you had once loved with absolutely no idea as to who she was anymore. It was horrible and tense as if there was more than just the amnesia between them. Had he been horrible to her? Was that why they didn't live together or was it just because they weren't married? All these questions were killing him. He had to know!

Annie started the car and glanced over at him. "Are you sure you're all right? You look a little distracted," she said. There was no note of hesitation in her voice anymore.

"I'm fine. I'm just… I don't know," Steve said, looking at his hands in his lap. "Nervous I guess. I have no idea of the life that I lead and I have no idea about what I'm going to do with myself. I don't know if I'll even be able to keep my job after this." Steve jumped as he felt a gentle comforting hand on his arm.

"It'll be all right. You'll get used to it. I don't know how it feels to have no memory of over half my life but I know that you'll feel at home after a few days," Annie said with a smile. Steve smiled at her, wondering how she knew that. Maybe it was just a woman thing?

The rest of the drive was spent in silence. Annie stopped the car outside of a block of flats. She pointed out the number and floor that his own apartment was on.

"Come over for dinner tonight. You can meet Darius again," Annie said with a sad smile. She was leaning over the passenger seat to talk to him through the window. Steve nodded and smiled at her. It sounded like a good idea although the thought of seeing his son sent butterflies through his stomach. Would Darius like him? What if they didn't get along? What if Steve had been a horrible father like his own had been? He shuddered at that thought. It didn't take much.

Steve turned and climbed the stairs. The building was cleaner than he had first thought. It was one of the better apartment blocks in the town, clean and almost posh. Steve took the key that Annie had given him out of his pocket and stared at it and then at the door on front of him. Room 16, floor 5. He felt almost nervous to be walking back into this flat. He didn't know a thing about it. He remembered living in his own house, the one he had grown up in as a child when he had come for his mother's funeral. Had he sold it off?

He sighed and pushed the key into the lock. A flat was nothing to be scared of. Right? Shaking his head he threw the door open. The hall in front of him was pleasant, inviting. He could floor to ceiling windows ahead of him in the room beyond. But something made him pause on the threshold. It felt like someone had been here, recently. Someone threatening. Steve walked cautiously into the hall, closing the door behind him. First mistake. He walked straight into the living room without looking behind him. Second mistake. The sofas were clean, nothing touched. The coffee table was made of glass and was intact. There were even a couple of old mugs left on presumably from what he had left when he had left last.

Something flashed in the corner of his eye. Steve whipped around to look behind him. Third mistake. Something fell on top of him, pinning him to the floor.

"Where's is he?" a voice hissed. "Where is Darren?"

"Don't know any Darren," Steve gasped, struggling to get up and away from his attacker. Perhaps this was the person that had attacked him and put him in the hospital.

"Sure you don't," the voice said sarcastically. "The same way you never knew a Shancus Von and killed him. The same way you never turned on your best friend." Questions popped into Steve's head. What on Earth was this man talking about? A horrible smell filled Steve's nostrils as the person yanked his head up by the ponytail at the back of his head. Steve yelped and struggled all the more.

"I have no idea what you're talking about! What do you want from me?" There was a long pause. Steve struggled desperately against the man but he had a vice like grip. Steve could feel the stitches in his chest being pulled but they were holding out for now. Suddenly the pressure was gone. Steve lay panting, winded on the floor.

"You better not be lying." Steve looked up and glanced around the room. No one was there. He heard the door open and then shut. Steve leapt to his feet and threw the front door open. The corridor beyond was empty.

"Hello!" he shouted. Empty. A man stuck his head out of the door next to his.

"Steve? Good Lord, when did you get back?" the man asked. Steve blinked. His voice was too light and high to be the one from his living room. Clearly this man was just a friendly neighbour.

"Just now," Steve said shortly. He had no idea who the man was.

"I heard about the accident. You all right now?" Steve grimaced and nodded, unsure how to remark. "Well feel free to come round whenever you feel like it. I and Clara were worried about what had happened to you." With that the man disappeared. Steve heard his door shut. He glanced down the corridor again and frowned. No one could disappear that fast. It was impossible.

He turned and shut the door. He glanced behind him and blinked. A post it note was stuck to the back of it. _Stay inside tonight_.

_Two men stood outside the block of flats. The sun was going down. One was red skinned as though sunburned. The other's skin was purple. They were both dressed in suits although the red skinned man's suit was crumpled and dirty as though he had slept in the wild. He smelt that way too._

"_He didn't have a clue who I was talking about. Are you sure we had the right place?"_

"_This was the place I was told of." The two stood in silence for a moment. The green haired, red skinned one starts again._

"_He looked just like him. Ponytail and all. But his eyes were blue." The purple skinned one blanched._

"_Are you sure? Blue not red?"_

"_Perfectly sure. There's something going on here. Whoever else is after him is one step ahead of us. I don't understand why."_

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><p><strong>Arthur: I don't undertand. Is this Steve a good guy or a bad guy?<strong>

**Tutankhamunfreak: You really are a cabbagehead. At the moment he's GOOD because he doesn't know his past in which he is BAD. He has a second chance and if you actually paid attention you would have known that.**

**Arthur: That still doesn't explain why Merlin has magic...**

**Tutankhamunfreak: (glaring murdurously at Arthur) Someone remove him before I strangle him. I nearly did it to someone today. I will do it to you.**

**(Arthur gulps very loudly and hides in a corner)**

**Merlin: Yey, someone has put the prat in his place!**

**Arthur: MERLIN!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Tutankhamunfreak: I'm back and it's the summer holidays!**

**Arthur: You left me here alone in the dark for three months.**

**Tutakhamunfreak: Actually I think it was a bit longer than that-**

**Arthur: What! Camelot could have been attacked by now and Morgana could have taken over or-**

**Tutankhamunfreak: Oh, keep your hair on. morgana's not going to attack until season five starts and even then you won't notice Merlin's not-so-subtle magical saves of your life.**

**Arthur: Magic is evil. Merlin does not have magic.**

**Tutankhamunfreak: Yes he does and this is not the point of this fanfic. honestly without Merlin you'd be dead by now. _(To audience)_ Sorry it took so long to update but I was going to wait until I had finished 'The War of the Wizards' but I'm kind of having writer's block on that so i write this instead. i had another version of this written down during Maths (my maths teacher doesn't care what I do since I finish all the work early) but I lost it. Well, I lost half of it and so had to re-write the part I lost.**

**Arthur: So Merlin is evil?**

**Tutankhamunfreak: WE JUS HAD THIS DISCUSSION! I don't own Darren Shan sadly but I do own the neighbours. Now, to deal with the idiot...**

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><p>Steve stared at the post-it note for a long time. The notes in the hospital could have appeared at any time before he had seen them but there had been no time for anyone to have placed it there. And Steve was sure that the post-it note had not been there when he had walked into the room. Not while he had been attacked. Suddenly the apartment didn't feel safe anymore. It felt ominous and foreboding. He didn't belong here anymore than the attacker did. He didn't live here…<p>

No. that was silly. Of course he lived here. The man next door had known him. How would he know him if they hadn't been next-door neighbours for any length of time? Nothing made sense anymore. But there was one thing that did. It would not be safe for him to leave the flat tonight.

It took less than an hour for Steve to have called Annie to inform her that he wasn't feeling up to coming over that night. She hadn't sounded surprised and Steve wasn't sure why. Had she known he was going to be attacked? Could she tell what had happened from his voice? Could she tell he was lying? No… that was impossible. Annie would never plan to have him attacked let alone interrogated.

_Where is Darren?_ Who _was_ Darren? The only Darren that Steve knew was dead. It still hurt to think about his name, especially when he thought about the stupid, childish suspicions he had about Darren when he had died. Especially when he had wasted half the life he remembered on trying to find Darren. Darren was dead, never-coming-back dead. There was nothing to dispute that fact. So why did these people, whoever they were, think he knew this other Darren?

Perhaps he had met him on his travels? Doctor Charles had said that he had spent most of his life travelling, doing work abroad. Perhaps he couldn't stand being in a town where a close friend had died? Or perhaps he was following that stupid childhood dream? Steve growled in frustration. Suddenly the blank memory wasn't a good thing, wasn't something he didn't want to know. He desperately wanted answers. No, he needed answers.

Steve glanced around the flat again and grimaced. He couldn't stay here. At least not for the moment. He had to get the feeling of hostility out of his head before he would even feel safe here let alone comfortable. He thought about where he could go but there were few places to go that weren't outside the building. An empty flat? No, that would be illegal. The reception area? No, that was too public. And then it came to him. The friendly next-door neighbour. Perhaps he could fill in some gaps.

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><p><em>Shadows flickered in the dark room. A figure of a young boy sat cross-legged in the centre of the room, staring down at the bowl of water in front of him. A woman sat opposite him, staring just as intently into the water. It showed the image of a man, asking another something in a hallway of some fancy flats. The house the pair inhabited was a far cry from the brightness of that hallway. It was dirty, dark and gloomy. A fitting place to not be disturbed.<em>

_The man in the bowl looked awkward, uncomfortable. The man on the other side of the door however was smiling and receptive. He invited the first man into the house. The image shifted with the man but faded. The pair caught a glimpse of a smiling, friendly woman with blonde hair and green eyes before the picture faded completely._

"_As I said," the woman began, "He is doing fine." The boy shifted a little in his spot on the floor avoiding the gaze of the woman across from him. Unlike the pretty woman in the bowl, this woman was completely different. Her hands were more like claws, the nails short except on the little fingers where the nails were long, like talons. She had a beard, thick and black and wild like her hair. She wore nothing but ropes but her stomach was swollen as if she were pregnant, which was quite possible._

_The boy was different. He could only be about seventeen and yet he was covered in scars. He was fairly muscled and lean, probably skinny as a child. He could have been handsome, with dark brown hair reaching the nape of his neck and dark green eyes, but for the scars. He seemed agitated though and the shadows of the room seemed to react to this, jumping and coiling on the walls and in the air. Only the light of a few candles, revealing the room to look more like a cave than a room, held them back._

"_He was attacked. Are you sure that the amnesia and eye colouring will hold them back? I don't think that will stop them for long," he said in reply. The woman sighed and shook her head._

"_It won't for long. That's why we intervene at strategic moments to stop them from finding out and therefore not changing the course of fate. The way the universe has willed it." The boy scowled at this answer and crossed his arms._

"_I feel useless, sitting here. I should be out there, doing something not sitting here staring into magic water!" he snapped. The woman gave him a long, calculating look._

"_You never used to feel that way," she murmured._

"_I never used to be chained to the laws of the universe in changing things even if I don't have the gift of seeing the future," the boy snapped back, clearly impatient. The woman raised an eyebrow._

"_You sound like a child."_

"_I don't know if you've noticed, but I am a child in all but mind," the boy said sourly, "and I'm stuck this way forever." He frowned even deeper, eyes fixed to the floor. The woman sighed._

"_The time will come when you will be free again," she said tiredly, "but you must be patient. Rushing into things hasn't solved any of your problems in the past and they won't solve them now."_

"_Cryptic as always," the boy muttered but said nothing else. They both just sat there staring at the water bowl for what seemed like forever._

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><p>Steve smiled at John and Clara as they cleared away the dishes. He had offered to help but they had insisted that he sat there.<p>

"After all," Clara had said, "you have just got back from the hospital." They had both been very inviting and had taken it in their stride that Steve had no memory of them. After the introductions had been dealt with, they had accepted him as a guest for the evening, not seeming to mind that he had rudely turned up on their doorstep asking to join them for dinner. They had been brilliant hosts and he couldn't believe that he had the luck to be next to a pair like them.

"So how do you feel now your home?" John asked, as he re-joined Steve on the sofa, handing him a beer as he did so. Clara came and sat on the armchair next to the sofa on John's side.

Steve shrugged, popping the beer open. "I'm not sure. It's better than the hospital room I was in and I'm glad to have such knowing and kind neighbours," he said, saluting them. Clara laughed.

"Well, we could hardly turn a friend down could we? Especially a friend who had no idea of where he was any more. I'm sorry to hear that," she said sincerely. Steve smiled gratefully at her.

"Must be lonely though," John said, looking up, "living in that house alone with nothing but the curtains for company. I don't get why you don't move in with Annie although I should say that that's an invalid question now."

"Mmmm," Steve said. "Honestly, I don't know why. I can't remember much and I don't really remember what our relationship was like as to why I wouldn't have done so." Clara was looking at him sympathetically. She was great that way, always trying to make you feel better but not being too sympathetic to make you feel pathetic.

"As far as we could work out you and Annie got along fine. You didn't see each other as often as you'd have liked but you never quarrelled as far as we knew," Clara said.

"Yeah and you and Darius got along fine. I think he enjoys having you visit him," John added. Steve looked glumly into the beer can, tracing the rim of the can.

"I don't remember that though… and that's the hardest thing. Knowing that you have members of family that you don't remember and knowing that you could have had any kind of relationship with them and yet, even though you try your hardest, you just can't remember." Clara placed a consoling hand on Steve's arm.

"It'll be all right," she said softly. "I'm sure once you've met up again you'll be fine." Steve gave her a smile and took a swig of beer. It didn't really affect him as much as he thought it would have, having gotten himself drunk a couple of times in the past. Well, of what he could remember. Maybe he had become an alcoholic?

"I do have one question…" Steve started. He didn't really know these people that well but maybe they would know who this Darren was. He had almost forgotten about it but know would be as good a time as any to bring up this mystery Darren figure. If they didn't know and asked him why he was asking he could just say it was a name he couldn't put a face to. "Do any of you know a man named Darren?" John frowned and thought about it for a moment before looking at Clara, who shrugged.

"There's a lot of Darren's around here… but I don't think you would know any of them," he said slowly, thinking it through. "Most of them live out of town and just come in to work here."

"Why do you want to know?" Clara asked her eyes alight with curiosity. Steve paused before thinking up a suitable lie.

"It's a name that keeps coming back to me but the only Darren I knew was when I was a kid and it was Annie's brother," he said. John blinked and Clara's eyes widened.

"I didn't know Annie Shan had a brother! What happened to him?" Clara gasped.

"He died when we were kids. He was my best friend but one day he leaned out of a window too far and fell. Broke his neck." Clara had her hands over her mouth and John looked shocked.

"I never knew that… Sorry," John said quietly. Clara just nodded, tears filling her eyes.

They passed the next few hours discussing small things like changes in the town over the years and where John and Clara had lived in the past. Steve learnt that the old theatre had been renovated and was now running regular shows which were where Clara worked as an actress. They had both come from a small town by the sea but they hadn't had enough money to stay there and this place had seemed as good a place as any. Steve also learnt that they hoped to be able to move back to the sea again when they had the money but it wasn't going that well for now considering they only had just about enough money to afford this place.

It was nearing eleven when Steve finally left their apartment for his own but the moment he walked through the door the hostile feeling returned. He couldn't shake the feeling that he shouldn't be here. That people now new where he lived and so they would hunt him down until they got what they wanted. It was irrational and stupid but it was how he felt.

Steve turned to get the light and as he did so he caught a glimpse of two dark green eyes in the gloom. He froze and turned back towards where they were. Or had been. The eyes were gone. Steve flicked on the light. No one was there. Somehow he still couldn't shake the feeling of being watched though.

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><p><strong>Arthur: I don't get this anymore. You said in here that Darren was dead but what's with the boy in the smoke?<strong>

**Tutankhamunfreak: Er, one, spoiler alert. Two, you would know the answer to that if you had read the books as to why Darren is 'dead'.**

**Arthur: What's with the speech marks?**

**Tutankhamunfreak: It means that he's not really. In fact it's called SARCASM. How does Merlin put up with you? You're driving me insane! the next thing I know Harry Potter will be in here asking why merlin isn't an old man!**

**Harry Potter: He isn't?**

**Tutankhamunfreak: That's it! I'm out of here!**

_**(Door slams loudly in the background)**_

**Arthur: She's coming back right?... Hey, wait, I'm locked in. HELP!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Tutankhamunfreak: So I'm back!**

**Arthur: how long have you been keeping me in here again?**

**Tutankhamunfreak: Um... I don't know. About a year ago? I'm sorry I just forgot about this one.**

**Arthur: You left me here! You left me in here for over a year!**

**Tutankhamunfreak: Sorry? i guess I should explain why I've been away so long from this story. So, basically I had writer's block over this but there was some on my memory stick, which I have lost. Again. Then, I wanted to finish The War of the Wizards, which is finished now and would be glad of any reviews people would like to give (seriously only one person reviewed it after I finished it). Then I had my GCSE's which included me going through a depressed phase in my life which I haven't really gotten out of. And now I've started Sixth Form which is about ten times as hard as GCSEs. BUT, I have made a commitment to these stories, if you would check my profile as the notice is on there.**

**Arthur: So how long are you going to leave me this time?**

**Tutankhamunfreak: Six weeks.**

**Arthur: WHAT?**

**Tutankhamunfreak: Oh, come on it'll be a Christmas present for people. Please enjoy this chapter!**

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><p>The green eyes haunted Steve for a long time. He couldn't think of where they came from, especially since he lived on the fifth floor and there was no time or space for someone to have come and gone from the room between turning on the light and turning round. It was impossible. That, and there was only one person he knew who had eyes in <em>that<em> shade of green… well, two people but one was dead and Annie was clearly not here.

It took a long time for Steve to get to sleep that night, the sheets and bed feeling odd and out of place. He didn't know what he was used to in this time, but he was cert8ianly not used to sitting on a plush armchair and lying in a comfortable bed. From what he _could_ remember, he hadn't even been able to afford a decent apartment and now he was reasonably rich? When did that happen? What did any of this mean? First mysterious post-it notes appearing with instructions of what to do, then some attacker from hell and now a stalker with a dead man's eyes? If this was a common occurrence, it was more like a horror film than real life.

The next day dawned bright and clear and Steve decided that it was high time he left the house. He didn't feel safe or comfortable in it and he certainly wanted nothing to do with whatever was going on. So he decided that he might as well see how things had changed in twenty years, perhaps even pluck up the courage to meet the son he knew nothing about. But Steve didn't want to do that to a child, to walk into a house and pretend to smile and be happy while all the time wondering if he can see just how lost you are. It wouldn't be fair.

_But it's not like your father didn't do the same. When he was actually at home that is_ he found himself thinking but he shook the thoughts off, heading away from the flat and for the park that he had known as a child. Things were plenty different, an arcade added and shopping centres having sprung up while he was gone… at least in memory. But at the moment, Steve was more conflicted over what he was going to do about this Darius. He didn't want to be his father but he also didn't want to hurt the child's feelings by removing himself completely. It was a choice between two evils and Steve didn't think he could make that decision at the moment.

Something moved in the corner of his eye and Steve turned to see a teenager, about sixteen or seventeen staring at him from across the street. The breath caught in Steve's throat as he stared back, hoping against hope, that this wasn't real. It was the boy from his dream, the one with the fangs. _A nurse and a doctor were killed…_ That was what Doctor Charles had said. He had thought it a coincidence, having seen a nurse and a doctor in those hallucinations before waking from his coma but now he wasn't so sure. But this couldn't be the boy could it. And then the strange happened again, straight out of a film. A passing car momentarily blocked Steve's sight of the boy and once it had passed he was gone. Steve released the breath he was holding and glanced desperately around. Was anywhere in this town safe? What had he done to have creatures from the night stalking him, even in daylight?

"Oh God…" he muttered under his breath, glancing around and trying to feel anything but panic. "Oh God…" he said slightly louder, stumbling forwards and wandering blindly out of the park, away from the boy. What was going on in his life?

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><p><em>A door shut in the background, the woman not looking up from the bowl.<em>

"_You shouldn't have done that," she said quietly, not looking up. The boy came and sat in his usual spot in front of the bowl, his eyes downcast._

"_I had to. They were stalking him again."_

"_In broad daylight?" the woman's voice was sceptical as she said it, one eyebrow raised. The boy scowled at her._

"_Yes, in broad daylight or do you not remember Vancha's crusade against the sun?" the boy's face suddenly scrunched up in disgust. "I sound a billion years old." The woman let out a laugh, leaning back and away from the now empty bowl._

"_Well, you are aren't you? Nearing thirty and all."_

"_Only in this decade."_

"_Ah, yes not counting the thousand years you were forced to spend in the future," the woman said not unkindly. The boy dropped his eyes again. "It is a fact of life that we grow older and cannot stop it. But just because the passage of time doesn't affect us on the outside, doesn't mean that it does not affect us on the inside. You have changed whether you like it or not and it is up to you whether it is for better or worse."_

"_I don't know any more what I need to do. It used to be so simple. Stop the bad guy and things would go on as before. Now…" the boy glanced around, his eyes taking in the dirty room, the cracked walls, the sparse furniture that was falling apart. "Now I don't think I know what is good and what is bad. And I know that if I were to return, I would be lost there too."_

"_You should have gone with him. You could have achieved more there than here." The woman was staring at him now, something like confusion crossed with sympathy on her face._

"_And where would that have gotten me?" the boy suddenly snapped, jumping to his feet. "To have to make up and hide what I really am! You can hide Steve's true nature from himself because in the end he didn't want it. Me, I wouldn't be able to let go of it without fearing I would hurt the people I love, everyone I care about. Going back would only cause more pain than staying here!"_

"_Then why are you so conflicted as to what to do?" the woman said quietly. "You sit here and state that you wish to do more and yet you do nothing. Why?" The boy seemed to deflate and the shadows flickered back to where they were supposed to be._

"_I'm sorry. I'm just… just so confused ever everything. My life, Steve's life, Annie's life… Nothing can ever be the same and I want to help them any way I can but I can't because of some stupid laws that stay I have to stay dead. But at the same time I'm…" The boy seemed to take a deep breath his eyes turning to look at the shadows in the corner. "I'm afraid of what I can do."_

"_But you have control over it," the woman said, one hand taking a hold of his. "And you will continue to gain a better control the longer you practise your power over them. You cannot hurt anyone but yourself here."_

"_That's comforting," the boy snorted, his eyes only a little lighter. The woman smiled and sat back._

"_I know. But that is the way it is."_

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><p>Steve didn't know how he ended up here, he just had. It was his old house, or what use to be his old house anyway. It was clearly unused, the windows boarded up and the paint peeling from the walls. Numerous cracks ran up the wall and if someone didn't try and patch it up soon, the place looked ready to collapse. But it had been his home for a long time and nothing would stop him from letting that go, no matter how many bad memories he had of the place because there were some good ones too. All those times spent with Darren, running up and down the stairs like hooligans, playing with Darren's tarantula before he killed it, laughing at the most stupidest things in life. It had been great to be young. And then Darren had died and things had gone downhill, leaving him with nothing but a few memories of a time where he had aimed to leave school as soon as possible, to leave his mother before she drove him crazy. Without Darren, his life had been empty. He had been alone and friendless, pushing everyone away and this was how he had ended up. Told he was happy, but unable to remember it.<p>

"You alright there?" a voice called out, stopping Steve's train of thought. He turned to see an old man, presumably homeless, sitting at the bottom of the steps to another run-down house, surrounded by old boxes of take-away.

"I'm fine," Steve said, smiling back at the man. He moved on before he was forced to talk to anyone else he didn't know. It felt uncomfortable, like walking through an old house and knowing you don't belong there, to walk through the town now. But there was nothing sinister about the place, especially his old house, considering everywhere else unexplainable and sometimes terrifying events had taken place. He thought about the boy who had been staring at him, how he had just disappeared.

_He could just be a figment of your imagination_ a voice said in his head, telling him what he had been thinking all along. Perhaps he wasn't as fully recovered as the doctors had thought. He would go back to the hospital, tell the doctor everything he had seen and heard so far and ask him what he thought. It would sound crazy, but he would convince the doctor it was true. After all, the attack had been real and so had the notes. The strange eyes and the boy from his dream probably weren't, but only time would tell that.

He found his feet taking him down a familiar street, one that he had been avoiding. He didn't want to hurt the poor kid but that seemed inevitable whatever he did. _Might as well get it over with now_ he thought. Less pain for the future he had found in the past. The longer you put off a problem, the more it would build up and hurt you later when it all finally came back to haunt you. And so, in the end, he ended up in the one place that he had said he _wouldn't_ be going today. A house he knew almost as well as his own.

The door was answered by Annie, who smiled when she saw him. "Steve! Why don't you come in?"

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><p><strong>Arthur: This chapter's shorter than the last one.<strong>

**Tutankhamunfreak: Thank you Captain Obvious for that.**

**Arthur: Soooo... Merlin has magic.**

**Tutankhamunfreak: Your leaving if you want to talk about that here. And how is that relevant to this? Thank you all for reading and I hope you all don't get annoyed by how spread out all the updates will be! Please review.**

**Arthur: yes, please do because then I actually get food.**

**Tutankhamunfreak: You get food.**


	5. IMPORTANT NOTICE

**Author's Note:**

**I apologise now for the disappointment that this is not an update of the kind you are all waiting for. This is an update on how things are going to work for me to get my stories finished and new projects on the go faster than I am now. So this is how things are going to pan out:**

**Once a week I am going to update a chapter to whatever story I am working on in this order:**

**Secrets Told, Secrets Withheld- this story is the nearest to completion and so will be quicker to update and finish first. Sadly the sequel is involved in the next part, so hang in there for now guys.**

**Frozen Prince- This one requires more effort on my part to get my rear end moving and do some research but other than that I love it and can't wait to finish it, so hopefully it will all work out in the end. It's also developing to be longer than I originally thought, so good news for you guys!**

**Court of Emrys- I love this story but admittedly I need to re-read and re-evaluate what I wanted to get out of this one. I'm sorry that it has come last, but this one will require the most work because I can only just remember what I wanted for this, mainly due to a plot point process of going over roughly what the storylines of each story were (they all got confused in my head).**

**After this, I am going to put up a poll to ask people what they want done next. This will include:**

**Dance of the Dragons**

**The sequel to Secrets Told, Secrets Withheld (and at some point I will give it a name)**

**Once Upon a Dream**

**In a Time of Ignorance and a Land of Change**

**The after story to Storytelling**

**Now some of you are probably thinking 'but, hey, two of those stories are the ones that I am waiting for'. They are on this list for two main reasons: 1) they have a total of 12 reviews together and so I assume are the least liked of my fanfics (which is a shame because I was really proud of the pair of them) and 2) I haven't updated these two in a long time and will require more work than Court of Emrys. Before anyone points out that The Day Everything Changed isn't on here, there is an author's note in the story already explaining why it's not on this list.**

**Depending on the outcome of that poll, I will update from there, and update you guys too. However, that update will be on my profile, not as an author's note like this as I don't like disappointing people. **

**Thank you for reading this, and I hope to get back to you guys as soon as possible. **

**P.S. no updates will be coming forth regularly until after 4****th**** July. University Open Days are kinda more important than FanFiction, unfortunately. Sorry guys for the super long wait.**


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